Free Republic

1. First, racist speech is constitutionally protected, just as is expression of other contemptible ideas; and universities may not discipline students based on their speech. That has been the unanimous view of courts that have considered campus speech codes and other campus speech restrictions — see here for some citations. The same, of course, is true for fraternity speech, racist or otherwise; see Iota Xi Chapter of Sigma Chi Fraternity v. George Mason University (4th Cir. 1993). (I set aside the separate question of student speech that is evaluated as part of coursework or class participation, which necessarily must be...

A complaint over a malfunctioning photo booth at an Ohio Chuck E. Cheese’s escalated into a terrifying attack involving a dozen birthday party-goers on Sunday — an incident that left two employees seriously injured, according to police. Police say a female patron complained to Chuck E. Cheese’s employees in Parma, Ohio, about the photo booth not working, and that a manager told her she had to wait. Then, police said, one of the male party attendees followed the manager into the kitchen, threatened to kill him and began to attack. “I’m characterizing this as an attack on the employees of...

It depends on how one measures trust, but Fox News wins in at least one definition provided by Quinnipiac in their latest polling. When ranked head-t0-head in a single question — notably asked after individual trust questions in this survey — Fox News wins by a significant margin against other national television news outlets, 29/22 over CNN and with NBC and ABC tied for a distant third at 10%. On the individual trust questions, though, the results become more nuanced: When asked, “Do you trust the journalistic coverage provided by FOX News,” 20 percent of U.S. voters say “a...

The departure, temporary so far, of Brian Williams has provided a measure of relief to NBC’s beleaguered news division. With Lester Holt getting good ratings and other stories erupting (notably Hillary Clinton’s scandals at State and the Clinton Foundation), people have paid less attention to efforts to scour Williams’ records for more evidence of fabulism and exaggeration. It’s been almost a month since the last big reveal, and NBC News has been very quiet about its own probe into Williams’ public statements.That doesn’t mean that NBC has righted the ship in its news division, though. New York Magazine’s Gabriel...

Republicans who are lambasting Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email address on a private server have found themselves on a minefield, each facing questions about their own transparency. The closest parallel among Clinton's likely 2016 challengers: Jeb Bush. The former Florida governor was quick to criticize Clinton this week amid reports that she'd never used a government email during her four years as secretary of state. Like Clinton, though, Bush had set up his own home server with a private address during his time in office. He still uses it, giving it out at events and asking supporters to...

The left realizes that the fearless Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is becoming a serious threat as the right’s potential presidential candidate. So, true to their politics of personal destruction, the leftist media has united in a full-on pre-emptive assault to take Walker down. That included a blatant lie about the governor’s effort to conceal the reporting of campus rapes. Last Friday Jezebel, a politics-and-pop-culture website replete with vicious and foulmouthed radical feminists, posted an attack on Walker written by “senior reporter” Natasha Vargas-Cooper. Vargas-Cooper is no novice to pop culture journalism, though she apparently doesn’t feel bound by any Old...

The Marquis de Lafayette, the French general and Revolutionary War hero, was the first foreign dignitary to address the House of Representatives. Lafayette delivered a speech before a meeting in the House Chamber on December 10, 1824. The first non-head of state to address a Joint Meeting of Congress was Polish Solidarity Leader Lech Walesa in 1989. Nelson Mandela, then Deputy President of the African National Congress addressed a Joint Session in 1990. Including Petro Poroshenko, President of Ukraine, who addressed a Joint Meeting of Congress on 18 September 2014, there have been 114 Joint Meeting addresses delivered by foreign...

The Transportation Security Administration said it is unlikely to detect and unable to extinguish what an FBI report called “the greatest potential incendiary threat to aviation,” according to a classified document obtained by The Intercept. Yet despite that warning, sources said TSA is not adequately preparing to respond to the threat. Thermite — a mixture of rust and aluminum powder — could be used against a commercial aircraft, TSA warned in a Dec. 2014 document, marked secret [PDF here]. “The ignition of a thermite-based incendiary device on an aircraft at altitude could result in catastrophic damage and the death of...

Pres. Obama is daring Republicans to vote on whether or not his executive actions are legal. Discussing opposition to his executive amnesty orders at an immigration town hall Wednesday, Obama said he would veto the vote because his actions are “the right thing to do”: “So in the short term, if Mr. McConnell, the leader of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, want to have a vote on whether what I’m doing is legal or not, they can have that vote. I will veto that vote, because I’m absolutely confident that what we’re doing is the...

The World View in Five Minutes February 25th, 2015 This is THE WORLD VIEW in 5 Minutes. I’m Adam McManus. As it turns out, God still controls the weather patterns, and Congress does not! They’re calling it a snow-pocalypse on the East Coast. And they are not calling it global warming. Washington DC broke a 120 year low temp record last weekend. And Boston has cleared 100 inches (or 8 feet) of snow, and is expected to top its all time season record. Syria reports more kidnappings by Isis. An additional 90 women, children, and elderly have been reported missing...

BEIRUT (AP) — Islamic State militants have abducted at least 70 Christians, including women and children, after overrunning a string of villages in northeastern Syria, activists and relatives said Tuesday. The Sunni extremists, who follow a radical interpretation of Islam, have repeatedly targeted religious and ethnic minorities in Syria and Iraq since seizing control of large swaths of both countries. The group's fighters have ransacked churches, demolished Shiite and Sunni Muslim shrines, and enslaved women of the Yazidi community, a tiny sect IS considers heretical. The latest assault began before dawn on Monday, when the militants swept through the villages...

<p>PARCC, the Common Core-aligned test being taken by millions of students this semester, is supposed to take more than two hours per day to complete. But why should students devote more than 15 minutes to a test that won’t affect their grades, their ability to graduate, or their college admissions prospects?</p>

In his best-selling book Killing Kennedy, Bill O’Reilly tells a brief tale of an intrepid reporter — himself — chasing the historical truth of JFK’s assassination in south Florida. But the story itself is a fiction, as O’Reilly reveals here in his own voice. In the annals of the JFK assassination story, rife with CIA and FBI malfeasance, O’Reilly’s fanciful anecdote might seem trivial. It is not the saddest feature of a book that manages to ignore all of the high-quality JFK assassination scholarship of the last two decades. But as O’Reilly’s yarn is presented as fact in USA Today and the Fort-Worth Telegram; as his...

Fox News host Bill O'Reilly responded again Friday to allegations made by "Mother Jones" that he lied about his coverage of the Falklands conflict in 1982. Thursday night, shortly after the allegations were published, O'Reilly came out blasting, calling David Corn, one of the authors of the piece, a "pig" in an interview with The Sun. Friday in his "Talking Points" memo, which was to be broadcast at 8 p.m. during his show, O'Reilly quoted from internal CBS memos that he says he found last night, which back his version of the coverage he provided for the network 33 years...

In the release its latest monthly analysis of global temperatures on Thursday the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. reported that, with a combined land and sea average global surface temperature deviation of 1.39 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average, 2015 had the second warmest January on record. The year 2007 still holds the record for warmest January since records started in 1880. Earlier in the month the Japan Meteorological Agency released similar results, with 2015 tying 2002 and 2007 for the warmest January on record according to JMA data. The JMA...

British and American spies stole the encryption keys from the largest SIM card manufacturer in the world, according to a government document handed to The Intercept by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden. The NSA and its British counterpart Government Communications Headquarters targeted Gemalto, a multinational firm in the Netherlands that makes mobile phone SIM cards, to monitor mobile communications without permission from telephone companies. Gemalto currently creates SIM cards for AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint and 450 other wireless network providers around the world. Gemalto produces around 2 billion SIM cards every year. The breach, detailed in a 2010 GCHQ...

A bride in India decided to marry a guest on her big day after the groom had a seizure during the ceremony. The decision sparked a brawl after the husband-to-be regained consciousness and realized his would-be wife was with someone else, The Times of India reported Thursday. The incidents unfolded when Jugal Kishore, 25, of Moradabad, was preparing to garland his 23-year-old bride, Indira, from Rampur. As Kishore extended his arms, he had an epileptic fit and fell to the ground in front of the gathering. The bride, apparently angry that her family was kept in the dark about Kishore's...

Family annual passes for national park admission usually cost $80, but under Obama's plan, roughly 4 million 9- and 10-year-olds and their families won't have to pay for access to federal lands and waters. The White House will help parents plan trips to nearby parks and provide educational tools like field trip guides and science labs, according to a news release. Low-income schools can apply for transportation grants through Every Kid in a Park, as well. Obama will debut the initiative Thursday when he announces three new national monuments: the Pullman Historic District in Chicago, Browns Canyon in Colorado, and...

Sun News Network went off the air at 5 a.m. ET Friday after failing to find a new owner. Programming on the channel was replaced with a Sun TV logo. Sun Media Corp. issued a statement saying it spent months unsuccessfully trying to find a buyer, but financial losses meant it could not continue to operate. "This is an unfortunate outcome; shutting down Sun News was certainly not our goal," said Julie Tremblay, President and CEO of Media Group and Sun Media Corporation. "Over the past four years, we tried everything we could to achieve sufficient market penetration to generate...

How in the world did NBC News let its biggest star and face of its division run around America for more than ten years telling stolen valor lies, lie-lies, whoppers, white lies, exaggerations, and — if you want to be charitable — embellishments. Brian Williams didn’t just spew bald-faced lies from David Letterman’s couch. He lied repeatedly on the air at NBC News and its affiliates. He lied to NBC News legend Tim Russert. Stories Williams’ shared with NBC’s own Tom Brokaw both on the air and at Columbia Journalism school are now disputed. Things told to other reporters don’t...